When Fire Met Ice
by Kiro Angel
Summary: Draco has always wanted a Soulmate. From the time he sat on his mother's lap as a child, tracing the words on her shoulder, he had wanted to meet his desperately. The actual Bonding didn't happen as he had expected it to. Slash, m/m, all that stuff. Soulmate!fic, Drarry. Companion to The World Ended And Began.


AN: Hey, guys! I've been caught up with life- or, rather, fictional characters' lives- so I haven't been writing much at all. Sorry about that. I've recently been floating in Drarry and the HP universe so yeah... Here ya go.

I have a bit of a treat for you guys. This is one of two one-shots, one centering on Draco and the other Harry. They don't overlap until the end but I think that they tie together nicely.

I personally dislike the idea of Marks, I think it is lazy and overcomplicated and overly romantic, yet I just can't stop myself from writing them for some reason. Here you guys go, then!

Also, I do not own Harry Potter or the characters, creatures, places, etc. from the books. That all belongs to JK Rowling and Scholastic, I believe.

Enjoy, bros!

~Kiro

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the time Draco was two years old, playing with his mother's writing on her hand, he had loved his Soulmate. Sure, he didn't know who his Soulmate was, nor did he have his Soul Mark yet, but the idea enchanted him. That a person, even one such as him in such a reserved family as his, would always have one person to love them wholly, that made him feel safe and joyful and complete.

The feeling was there, of course, in the back of his mind for the next twelve years of his life. Then Voldemort returned, took over his home, and the idea seemed ludicrous. The Dark Lord had no Mark. His Love had died shortly after his sixteenth birthday and Riddle's Mark had faded, rotted and black along with the body of his Soulmate. He had been set apart in school and ridiculed and turned his bitterness into... This. Whatever this monster was, love was what had caused it, Draco was sure.

When Draco received the Dark Mark, he had lost all hope. The Dark Mark, or "True Mark", as only Bellatrix and the Dark Lord called it, was a sign that the Death Eaters were truly dedicated, repudiating their Marks for the one of their Lord, enduring hideous unbearable pain and a second "Mark" for their master. His taking it was a sure sign that such wonderful fate as a Soulmate could not exist for him, no world that would create someone perfect for him would allow him to be forced to take such a hideous thing. Even if it would, there was no way his Beloved would accept him with this faint on his skin, the skin meant only for the Mark of his true Love. He was screwed over by the universe.

When Draco's sixteenth birthday came, he didn't search for the faint writing. He forced himself to go through his day in silence, avoiding any glimpse of his own skin. It wasn't until two days later that he had found it.

~

It was the Dark Lord, ironically, who first saw the thing. The Dark Lord summoned him, demanding to see his Dark Mark and how he it was healing. Draco slid reluctantly down the hall, muscles tensely wound springs. Entering the chamber, he looked around at the Death Eaters who took up the edges of the room. There were Belatrix, her eyes sparkling in malicious delight, nameless underlings, his father on his knees and bowing by the doorway.

"Come, youngling. Show me your True Mark." His beady bloody eyes followed Draco as he made his way across the floor, head down, silver eyes fixed on the cracked and dirty marble.

As Draco knelt before his disgusting Master, the monster roughly seized his arm, tearing his sleeve up his arm. When his eyes caught on the faint emerald writing that curled around the snake and skull, he laughed, long and wheezy and maniacal. The chamber filled with his and his faithful drones' maniacal laughter and Draco stared down at the floor, willing his eyes to keep from watering to no avail. Finally, the Dark Lord ceased his laughter and again forced words from his decayed esophagus.

"Don't you see the beauty, young Malfoy? Even God, even your Destined parts for me and my True Mark." The most sacred thing in Draco's life had just been insulted by this monster that he couldn't fight, who he was totally submissive to. It made him feel sick. He could do nothing but wait out the laughter and, after that, slowly retreat to his rooms to scrub him arm raw and curl up on the sheets, weeping. Draco didn't eat until school came, only a week, instead hiding in his room in shame.

~

That school year Draco avoided contact with anyone, going so far as to wear gloves and log sleeves, hoping to avoid his Soulmate. He didn't want to break their expectations so soon by binding them to a pathetic and broken Death Eater. Besides, as the old saying went, "when wartime comes the gloves come out." No one wants to start such a tender new relationship in the center of the war. So he avoided touching others, trying to avoid heartbreak as well. His heart only shattered further when he was left without a soulmate by the end of the year.

During the final battle, Draco grieved his Soulmate. He was sure to die and he lamented that he never truly got to meet his other half. He managed not to be killed, but he almost lost his sanity when his Mark faded black, painfully, then a minute later back to green. He had truly never heard of a connection dying then resurrecting on one's skin. If his Mark was to be believed, his beloved was a zombie, which his Soulmate was definitely not. Draco thought. You never could be totally sure, they were wizards after all.

Draco's mark and the knowledge that his Beloved was still alive were the only things that kept him from offing himself in the next few months. Lucius was sent to Azkaban, Narcissa on house arrest, Draco on probation and an eighth year at Hogwarts. He was accosted in the streets, threatened via owl, and he had to set wards so that he could get any peace from howlers. Only the glinting faint green on his skin kept him alive. He traced the words every night while crying himself to sleep, trying to figure out whose handwriting it was, and who the words could represent, wishing for an actual person to hold.

~~~

The actual Unveiling went nothing as Draco had expected it. It was the first night of his eighth year at Hogwarts, about twenty other students from his year repeating, including Pansy and Blaise, thank the gods. He was sitting stiffly at the table, flanked by his two remaining friends and half-wishing that Goyle had been able to face the memories of his lost Soulmate and fellow bodyguard enough to come back to school. Not that Draco could blame him of course, he didn't think he would have fared much better had he lost his Beloved to the youth's own fiendfire. Still, he missed the wall-like Slytherin's company.

The speeches had just ended, given in a voice that was just a bit too feminine and much too solemn to belong to the proper, deceased headmaster who should have been giving the speeches. The sound of a throat being cleared made Draco turn, coming to face an unexpected visage among the murmurs of the welcoming feast. Harry Potter stood behind him, shifting from foot to foot and looking decidedly uncomfortable. After a cocked eyebrow from Draco and a second, unnecessary throat clearing, the boy spoke.

"Hi, uh, I just kind of wanted to give you this..." He thrust out an object, handle-first into the space between them. Hawthorn, long and thin, fading from dark to light around two raised bands of wood. His wand, the wand to kill the darkest wizard the world had ever seen, stuck out waiting for him to take it.

Draco raised his eyes, gazing into his arch enemy's optical lenses, through them into bright green eyes. They were peering at him uncomfortably, pleadingly even, somewhat confused and... worried. Figures that the Saviour of the Wizarding World would be worried about his enemy.

Draco cautiously reached out, gently stroking the wand and loosely curling his fingers beneath the length. Harry Potter, seeing he had his fingers touching the rod, let go. The wand tumbled from Draco's fingers and they both instinctively reached out, hands brushing, and-

And the world exploded. Light erupted from the contact point, purest white imaginable, expanding outward like an atomic bomb, a sonic boom of magic sounding in their chests. Draco's Mark burned, pure and brighter than the brightest light he had ever seen, the purest green that had ever existed. The words were searing almost painfully into his flesh and displaying themselves, burning through his shirt sleeve to state to the entire hall-

'When Fire met Ice'

And twenty centimeters away, burning brightly through his shirt, searing it away into tatters, right above his Destined's heart, curling around a scar, the silver words were emblazoned-

'The World Ended and Began'

~

Draco groaned and hauled himself from where he had collapsed- rather indignantly- to entangle himself in the table legs. He peered over at the young Saviour, who was blinking confusedly as he hauled himself from a heap on the floor. He dubbed his chest, staring from first the words on his pectoral, then the words on Draco's arm, and finally stopping at Draco's swimming quicksilver eyes.

"You never could do anything quietly, could you, Potter?"

This seemed to snap Harry out of his stupor and, amidst the deathly silent Great Hall, he shook his head at Draco, beaming.

"Oh, please, you're one to talk, oh Slytherin Prince. And that is Harry to you. Now come on, let's get some privacy."

With a grin, Draco rose, easily falling into banter as he hauled his Beloved to his feet.

"So eager, Harry. One would think you were hoping for this to happen."

"Oh, for longer than you could ever imagine."

And with that the couple left the stunned hall. It took about two seconds before a shriek of ecstatic fangirl pierced the silence, originating from one Ginny Weasley, and the hall erupted into noise.

~

It was the strongest bond since Merlin and Arthur and was in the papers for months afterward. It was told all over the Wizarding world and people were said to have been blinded for two days from the light. Everyone claimed to have known from the beginning, but, of course, no one did. Strangely, though, no one protested. The world finally had something good after the War, and hell if they were going to let that go over such a small thing as one of them having the Dark Mark. After all, you couldn't dispute a bond such as theirs.

(After Draco's death his wand was out in a museum as "the Luckiest Wand in Existence" for having been both the wand that killed the Dark Lord and the wand over which one of the strongest soul-bonds was established.)


End file.
